Christian Community: The Basis

Not what a man is in himself as a Christian, his spirituality and piety, constitues the basis of our community. Our community with one another consists solely in what Christ has done to both of us. This is true not merely in the beginning, as though in the course of time something else were to be added to our community; it remains so for all the future and to all eternity. I have community with others and I shall continue to have it only through Jesus Christ. The more genuine and the deeper our community becomes, the more will eveyrthing else between us recede and the more clearly and purely will Jesus Christ and His work become the only thing that is vital between us. We have one another only through Christ, but through Christ we do have one another, wholly and for all eternity.

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together